Hillsong UNITED – Right In Step

Our last album felt very deep, and very rich. I know when the guys are writing these songs they give everything, holding nothing back—I know that after singing songs like, “Even When It Hurts.” For me to sing that honestly it comes from a real place of when I did go through some personal stuff and truthfully hurt like hell. When we came out of finishing the Empires album and tour, I was kind of like, “Woo-hoo, we made it. …let’s [sing] joy!”

When getting into the new songs, like “Wonder,” that’s when I really got my chance to sit for a moment and allow God to speak to my heart about the season that we’ve just been through and maybe the stuff we’re walking in to. I was like, “God, I want that deep joy and to be able to honestly sing [about that], as well.” I felt like He said, “I don’t just bring you through things to then leave you to just move on. Whatever you go through, that’s the foundational platform for the next theme. You’re going to stand on that.” When you’re singing deep joy, that has to come from a deep place.

CCM: Joel, you mentioned “childlike faith…” A universal attribute of children is their innate ability to ask questions. What kinds of questions or conversations do you hope Wonder will foster?
JH: That’s a great question. I’ve got a 3-and-a-half year-old son, and every time I’m with him I observe the way he looks at the world. I’ll be sitting there, with cable news floating around in the background, and he’s just having the time of his life playing with Batman. You know? And I’m like, “When did we lose the wonder?” We get so swept up in all this “stuff,” not to say it’s not important, [some of it] is absolutely important. It’s just that we often like to try and box our ideas into a polarized world-view, where we’re too concerned with how it affects our here-and-now, and that doesn’t help or change anything. [That causes us] to miss the beauty of Jesus’ message and what He’s saying and doing, and what hope we have in living [by His example].

You know, when I look at Jesus and how He responded to people, He was the guy in the middle. He was the guy in the middle of the cross. He was the guy in the middle of the transfiguration. Everything about Him is about standing in the middle. I think sometimes we position ourselves on the cross, and we go, “Well, which thief are we?” And that’s if we’re being humble. And I often think that the problem with the world is of perspective and preference and feeling like, because of our world-view or the way things look from where we stand, that means that someone on the other side is wrong or is an enemy.

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